


like my mirror, years ago

by winteryknights (BlackcatNamedlucky)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Inspired by a Hozier Song, M/M, Song fic, Song: From Eden (Hozier), Title from a Hozier Song, everything in my life is inspired by a hozier song at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 04:24:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20687462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackcatNamedlucky/pseuds/winteryknights
Summary: The story of Aziraphale and Crowley's romance as told through lyrics in Hozier's "From Eden", because of course it is.***I have not and do not give my permission for my stories to be viewed through unaffiliated websites or apps that monetize my content. I do not own these characters, and I do not make a profit off of this work.***





	like my mirror, years ago

_Babe, there's something tragic about you_  
_Something so magic about you_  
_Don't you agree?_

Crawley remembered Aziraphale, from before. Much of his time as an angel was wiped from his mind the moment he hit that pool of sulfur, but some memories, big ones, those remained, and nothing about this particular angel was small enough to be forgotten. Crawley remembered vividly his radiant, sweeping wings, the halo that seemed to be sunlight itself pouring from his essence, the striking, ice blue eyes that peppered his skin, unblinking, all seeing. Aziraphale was power in a name, glory in a soul, reverence in a being.

At least,

he had been.

When God had been creating the universe and Aziraphale had wielded his incredible power with such delicacy, had created a solar system with a snap and millions of species with a breath.

Now, though, now he just looked ordinary. The only thing that defined him as an angel was the sword strapped to his back that burst into heavenly flame when brought into his grip. Crawley tried to avoid thinking about that sword as he slid through the Garden, looking for his mark. He wasn’t sure what it would do to him and he didn’t want to think about it, hoped he wouldn’t be caught before his task was completed (for that matter, hoped he wouldn’t be caught after, either).

Of course, he had the most rotten luck of all existence (not that that was hard, there wasn’t much of it yet), and Aziraphale noticed him winding through the lush growth and Crawley found himself face to face with that sword. He coiled back, tongue flicking out between his fangs with a hiss, when the angel lowered his sword and the flames died.

“Go quickly,” he said, looking around as though to check they weren’t being watched, “go quickly and don’t look back.”

Crawley wavered midair, confused, and the angel shooed him on. “Go!” he whispered urgently, turning on his heel and hurrying away, sparing one last glance behind him to check that the snake had listened.

Later, when Crawley slithered up the Gates of Eden and confronted the angel, finding that he had given his sword to Adam and Eve (“it’s going to be cold out there!”), the demon found himself wondering how, with all his infractions, Aziraphale remained among the ranks of Heaven while he himself had found himself cast into Hell for less.

Perhaps it was the achingly pure compassion the angel possessed that he couldn’t help but being drawn to.

_Babe, there's something lonesome about you_  
_Something so wholesome about you_  
_Get closer to me_

Somewhere down the line, Crawley realized Heaven didn't care for Aziraphale in the way they should. Didn’t appreciate him. Did they know what they had in the angel? What fire, what passion laid within him? Crawley had seen it with his own eyes, seen the way Aziraphale gave everything for humankind. Was that not God’s ultimate goal? That their first creation give all of themselves to their last?

He found it funny that Heaven seemed to have forgotten that goal. That they no longer focused on that aspect of the “Great Plan” (ineffable, the angel called it, a plan too great to be known. Crawley wondered how he expected to follow it, were that the case.)

It was clear that Heaven had made its own agenda, had strayed from God’s Great Plan while staying just enough within the lines to pretend they were carrying it out, and that Aziraphale’s dedication to his orders from the Almighty was throwing a wrench in their gears. Crawley worried about him, about what the other angels might do to prevent him further screwing up their plans.

Aziraphale, it seemed, had forgotten how to be the angel he once had been.

He had grown soft in his time around humankind, no longer the force to be reckoned with, the fearlessly rebellious bastard that Crawley had gravitated to.

He put too much faith in God and not enough in himself, but Crawley supposed that doing the opposite was what made him fall in the first place. Maybe it was for the best that Aziraphale had softened his edges. Had calmed down. Crawley wouldn’t wish the Fall on anyone, much less an angel he actually admired.

_Maybe,_ Crawley thought, _maybe it was meant to be this way. Him with so much faith and me with so many questions, coming together. Finding each other. Forging something._

Then he scoffed at himself. _Meant to be_, who was he? A demon, or an angel? No, this was a choice he’d made. Angels were insufferable, and this one was slightly less so. That was it.

_No tired sighs, no rolling eyes, no irony_  
_No 'who cares', no vacant stares, no time for me_

Crawley decided he hated the name The Almighty had christened him with when he fell. Had the act itself not been demeaning enough? He got it, he was a snake, haha very funny, _God._

_I thwarted you,_ he thought, _I took your people, I took your “Great Plan”, I took your do not touch sign and I wrecked it all. I do not belong at your feet, I belong in your throne._ I _set humanity free. You may have created them, but you also caged them. They can thank_ me _for their nomadism, for their villages, for their growth. Not you. Me and your renegade angel._ (“my renegade angel” lingered at the back of his mind and he didn’t know when he’d started thinking of Aziraphale that way, as something that might be, could be, shouldn’t be his, but that was a problem for a different day. Today he’d set aside to find a name, a title, that he could call his own. Now wasn’t that very demonic in itself? Defying God’s decision to see him as slithering at their feet and proclaiming himself other, taking his identity into his own hands. That was all it had taken for him to fall, why shouldn’t he continue on that path?)

No, he decided, he wouldn’t be seen that way, he refused to be. He was clever, he was tricky, he was a whisper of temptation in the ear of any who chose to listen and he was not a snake. He was not tethered to the ground, he could go where he pleased, take what he pleased, do what he pleased.

Do what he pleased.

Maybe he took a bit too much pleasure in the acceptance from Aziraphale when he introduced himself as Crowley. But he was a demon, wasn’t he supposed to indulge?

Either way, his heart fluttered when that name fell from Aziraphale’s lips. So much kinder than the way his fellow demons had taken to it. So much sweeter. So much more...right.

_Honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago_  
_Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword_  
_Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know_  
_I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door_

Something in Aziraphale loved Crowley, he could tell, but he didn’t think the angel knew.

Aziraphale was a perfect Heaven’s perfect angel. He was loyal, dedicated, and endlessly generous. And he would not fall in love with a demon, no matter what Arrangements were made, how many lunches were enjoyed, how many times he saved his life. He may love everything on God’s green Earth, but he would not love Crowley. Not the way Crowley loved him.

At least, not consciously.

Crowley was Hell’s worst demon, which meant something along the lines of he was their best demon, but in the most aggravating way, which made him an even better demon. He indulged, he thwarted, he secured more souls, fomented more discord and dissent than other demons, he tempted an angel. But he was never violent. Never if he had a choice not to be. And the other demons despised him for it.

Of course he was in love with an angel.

It was only right, that he mangle the rules to follow his own heart.

They were the nicest things he could mangle.

_Babe, there's something wretched about this_  
_Something so precious about this_  
_Where to begin_

What Crowley didn’t know was how much his angel loved him.

And how sorrowful that made him.

Everything in him wanted to love Crowley how he was meant to be loved, but he was a demon. He couldn’t love. Would he know how much it meant to Aziraphale to love him, to be loved by him? How much his heart swelled whenever the demon showed signs of kindness, and how painfully it shattered with Crowley’s quickness to shut down that assertion.

What Crowley didn’t know was he was lying in a grave of his own making.

What Aziraphale didn’t know is how deeply Crowley could love.

How deeply he loved every human being for breaking God’s rules, how deeply he loved “undesirable” critters because of the kinship he felt towards them, <strike>how deeply he loved God, how deeply he loved Aziraphale.</strike> But Crowley couldn’t fathom that he could be worth Aziraphale’s love in return.

What Aziraphale didn’t know is the way Crowley craved him with every atom of his being.

_Babe, there's something broken about this_  
_But I might be hoping about this._  
_Oh, what a sin_

The apocalypse that wasn’t shredded the veil between them.

It’s funny how it happens. How when you face the actual worst possible thing that could ever happen, the version of the worst possible thing that could ever happen that your brain fabricates to protect you from what it knows is the true horror just kind of. Falls apart.

The pretense crumbled.

There was no more Angel, and no more Demon.

There was only _their side_. And they, for once, truly believed that. They, for once, truly believed that they could love and be loved.

And they did.

That park bench, to that bus, to that cold, sharp apartment, so late at night, so early in the morning, they loved.

They loved quietly.

The world had been disturbed enough for one day, it didn’t need the cataclysm of an angel loving a demon.

The world didn’t need to know, but _they_ did. And for once, it was not danced around, not skipped, not overlooked because more pressing matters were at hand.

They _loved_, and it felt like everything that was right, everything that they had ever needed, everything their former sides never wanted to feel.

There was nothing big about it. Theirs was a gentle love, a new love, an ancient love, a love born, like a phoenix, from the ashes of so many loves that came before.

_To the strand, a picnic plan for you and me_  
_A rope in hand, for your other man_  
_To hang from a tree_

Berkeley Square had become, for them, a place of essential endings and bittersweet beginnings.

It wasn’t easy, severing yourself from everything you’ve known, everything you’d been told was there _for you_.

But when that everything no longer served you, it was necessary to get up and find somewhere that did.

Aziraphale and Crowley were that something for each other.

The world made sense when they were together.

And maybe, Crowley thought, maybe it _was_ a little bit meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed my fic, consider dropping a kudos and a comment! It would be much appreciated <3


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